Remember that marketing automation is a strategy first and a tool second, and that it is different for every organization based on your unique needs, objectives, and technology environments. Before you begin searching for a solution, gather the stated requirements of the prospective users of the marketing automation solution--each requirement should be necessary, verifiable, attainable, unambiguous, complete, consistent, traceable, concise, and uniquely identifiable. As the project manager, it's your job to distinguish “stated” requirements from “real” requirements. It's also important to identify the specific ways marketing automation will benefit your organization compared to the current processes, or compared to implementing an alternative solution or existing solution (in our case, ExactTarget). I recommend thinking of the benefits of a marketing automation solution in terms of three main categories: 1) business process efficiency improvements; 2) strategic benefits that are less tangible, but nonetheless important to the organization; and, 3) cost savings (if applicable).

Evaluation and Selection

We evaluated Marketo, HubSpot, Act On, and Pardot. All four solutions were relatively equal from a functionality standpoint, but we selected Marketo Spark because they offered the most sophisticated Salesforce.com integration, their user interface was very intuitive, the company is pre-IPO and appears to have strong financial stability, and they appear to be innovating more quickly than their peers.

Training

I was basically self-taught; I would not recommend this to a marketing automation novice, but if you have experience with other email marketing and/or landing page management tools, you may be able to succeed without formal training.

No - During the purchase process, it was not explained to me and I did not read the fine print that said we would not receive phone support. Because we had enjoyed excellent phone support from our previous provider at no additional cost, this was a difficult change to absorb.

Vendor Relationship

The customer experience between the sales process and after the sales was like night and day. We went from having a Marketo sales rep talk to us every day for a month, to feeling like we were alone on an island with thousands of other stranded tourists.